Erin Hooker enjoyed the brightest moment yet of a very promising high school cross country career at NXN. Photo by Alan Versaw.
For the first time ever, Colorado placed two teams in the top 10 at NXN (originally NTN) in the same gender. Fort Collins finished 3rd and Pikes Peak (The Classical Academy) finished 9th in the girls championship race at NXN on Saturday.
Both teams recorded solid performances, but the third place posted by Fort Collins was particularly noteworthy. Many people were offering predictions of the outcome of the girls race, but those predictions had this much in common--they all had Fort Collins finishing sustantially worse than third.
The team score of 161 posted by Fort Collins was only 14 points out of second and was fueled by a particularly competitive top four.
Rachel Viger led the Fort Collins team, finishing 35th (18 points) in 18:30. Freshman Erin Hooker was next at 40th (20 points) in 18:38. Close behind the lead pair were Marci Witczak and Kirsten Follett in 46th and 62nd, respectively. Closing out the scoring for Fort Collins was Denise Chilson.
Although Fort Collins has sent 4 teams to NXN/NTN, three girls teams and one boys team, third is easily the highest finish ever recorded for a Fort Collins team. It is also the second-highest finish ever by any Colorado team. Smoky Hill's second in 2004 remains the standard for Colorado finishes.
The Classical Academy had strong efforts from Kaitlin Hanenburg (18th, 18:13), Emily LaValley (31st, 18:27), and Shelby Stableford (81st, 19:06) to put Pikes Peak XC into position for a 9th-place finish. Kaitlin Hanenburg briefly took over the lead of the race just before 4K, but was unable to hold that position later in the race.
Both teams moved up in the team standings from last year's performances. Fort Collins improved from 7th to 3rd, while Pikes Peak moved up from 13th to 9th from 2008 to 2009.
Individually, Colorado was represented by Eleanor Fulton (5th, 17:56), Heather Bates (39th, 18:38), Becky Schmitt (53rd, 18:45), and Kailie Hartman (80th, 19:05).
Another interesting fact arising out of Saturday's NXN girls championship is that eight of the top ten places belonged to schools from New York, California, and Colorado. Only Ohio and Virginia also managed to place teams in the top 10.